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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0685.PDF
AUGUST IO, 1916. transport tent sheds, and absolutely essential stores, and on the 20th the main body commenced the ten day's journey to Rahad, the railhead station south of Khartoum. The trans port difficulties proved greater than anticipated. Stores and machines had to be got forward to Gebel-el-Hilla and Abiad Wells, 300 miles west of the railway, and the track to Nahud, half way, was quite unreliable, and lorries often stuck fast in the sand for days. The lorries had to take their own supplies of petrol and water, thus reducing the loads. " Intense heat caused aviation petrol tins to burst, and evaporation was so great that a consignment of seven cases supposed to hold 56 gallons contained only 37 gallons. Plants with very sharp, hard thorns grew on the track and punctured tyres, and with the thermometer registering 1200 in the shade it was desperately hard work to get up stores to be ready for the commencement of aerial flights from Hilla by May 12th. Most of the transport was done with camels—for at least 150 miles it was impossible to carry stores except in camel packs—and as the tents for machines each required 28 camels to carry them, the labour involved in transport may be imagined. " An officer travelling in advance had selected spots for landing places, and had put down directional arrows of long strips of white cloth. These began to disappear, and the new robes of sheikhs' wives was evidence of the uses to which the pilfered material had been put. It was extremely diffi cult to find one's way in this country. In the mornings, when the camel transport trains were on the move, the airmen could pick up the exact line, but the camels were rested from 9 a.m. till 4 o'clock, and flying was dangerous after midday because of heavy storms. You get no warning of the ap proach of a ' haboob.' " Extraordinary exertions were made to push forward the stores. Major Groves controlled matters at railhead, and every officer and man in the flight did more than a full share to see that everything needful was in properly-placed depots on the line of route. A shed was built at Nahud for the two reserve machines, and the tents were ready at Hilla when two B.E.2c's landed in the aerodrome at dawn on May nth. A reconnaissance had been arranged for May 12 th, and a machine flew over El Fasher on that morning. The Royal Flying Corps had kept to the time-table despite the un expected difficulties of the road, and all that was asked of the flight was done to the end. " Much the longest flight in Africa stands to the credit of this flight of the Royal Flying Corps. On May 17th Col. Kelly's force was approaching Bir Meleit, an oasis 37 miles north of El Fasher, which was believed to be occupied by the enemy. It was important to know their strength, and also to ascertain whether there was water in the wells there. At dawn an airman started from Hilla (116 miles away) to reconnoitre. On his first journey he could not find Meleit, and he returned to the aerodrome at Hilla for further in formation. At 8.45 a.m. he again set out, and was successful. In flying over the place he was fired ,at, and a bullet hit the propeller. Bombs were dropped, and the airman came down low and opened machine-gun fire on the enemy, 500 of whom bolted and left Meleit open to our troops. On his return journey the airman dropped a message to Col. Kelly, telling him that there was water in the wells and that the enemy had fled. The airman reached Hilla at 2.15 p.m., having been flying for 8 hours out of a period of 9 hours, a feat which the Sirdar warmly praised in a speech of thanks to the Royal Flying Corps for their magnificent work. " On some succeeding days there were further reconnais sances. Care was taken to measure the aeroplanes to see that they were standing the strain of unusual weather con ditions, and the result was satisfactory. On May 23rd, as Col. Kelly was approaching El Fasher, Lieut. J. C. Slessor flew over the long stretch of country between the aerodrome and Ali Dinar's capital, and arrived at the moment when the force had gained a victory over the Sultan's troops. Lieut. Slessor saw 2,000 enemy cavalry drawn up in reserve outside the town, and attacked them with bombs and machine-gun fire. The horsemen scattered in all directions and took no further part in the fighting. When he began bombing the cavalry the Lieutenant saw a group surrounding a banner. He aimed a bomb at the party, and later information points to the Sultan having a narrow escape, two of his servants and his own camel being killed by the bomb. " While attacking the cavalry Lieut. Slessor received a bullet wound in the thigh, and he had to steer with his hand instead of his foot on his way back to Hilla, his difficulties (/ycHT being greatly increased by a storm which broke suddenly. He brought the first news of the victory, and it was trans mitted to the Sirdar from the aerodrome." The Times correspondent at British Headquarters, writing on July 31st, thus describes the work of the bombers :— " In the heat and haze which have been so prevalent of late, aerial observation for artillery purposes is very difficult, and to that extent the conditions are in favour of the enemy, who is the inferior power in the air. When he loses his observation he loses much less than we. However bad the^_ air may be for certain purposes, nothing, since this battle began, has stopped our constant daily bombing from aero planes of important military points behind the enemy's lines. Many prisoners have spoken with terror of the damage which our aeroplanes have done, and declared that the bombing has been worse than artillery fire. " It is immensely interesting to watch a squadron starting off on some distant and daring enterprise, but vastly more thrilling to see. them come home. It is during the time that his men are away that the commanding officer has the moat anxious time that he has to go through. I have shared, in minor degree, the anxiety of such a vigil. " They had gone, very cheerfully and with almost no words said, on a long and dangerous flight over the enemy'B territory. A large flight of our fighting machines, soaring in the sunlight, into and beyond the clouds, is a sight more beautiful than any flock of birds that fly. They had all dis appeared into the distant blue, and nothing then remained but to wait. Would they attain their end ? And if they did, how many would come back ? It is nervous work waiting, even for an accidental outsider. For the com mander who has sent them on their errand it is trying to a degree. " At last they came—one singly, and, after some minutes, another and then another and another, till at last the tale was complete. They had all come home safely, and they had done what they had been sent to do—as the way of our airmen is—down to the last detail. " Arrived at their destination, they had dropped down from the dizzy heights at which, on such an errand, they fly, and then methodically one after another, they had done their work. From that height an airman's trained eye can watch the course of his bomb in clear weather until it actually strikes the ground. So they had seen them fall; they had seen them strike the railway trucks and station and the depot where the stores were kept. Each had had his object and each had found it. They had seen the bombs—explosive and incen diary—strike true, they had seen the wreckage and the smoke and the flames, and they knew that their work had been thorough. And only the last had been fired at. " At less than 2,500 ft. an anti-aircraft gun should have little trouble in finding an aeroplane. Perhaps the men with the ' Archies ' were having their after-luncheon nap. Pro bably they had had beer to drink—and the day was very hot. So all our machines but one had dropped their bombs—not hurriedly but with precision—before the enemy's guns spoke— and then they spoke harmlessly. " ' Oh, yes ; they came pretty near,' the pilot of the last machine said casually, ' nothing unusual.' For these men to have the shells exploding ' pretty near ' about their ears is a daily incident. They merely report it, saying that they were fired at by a gun at such-and-such a place much as if they said that they had lunched there. " I have already said, in a former message, that one result of this thick weather will probably be a recrudescence of enter prise on the part of the enemy airmen. Behind the protection of the haze they will have had time to get their courage up. And we shall beat them down again. So long as you at home make sure that our Flying Corps gets regularly the men and material that it needs you need have no misgiving about the future in the air. " The enemy may splutter and let off fireworks now and again, but in the long-run we hold him here, and the French hold him no less decisively farther down the line. He may and will make dashes for liberty now and again, but he will never, I believe, get the upper hand of us again." In a despatch, describing a flight over the British lines, the Times Special Correspondent at the British Headquarters, writing on July 28th, says :— " We did not, of course, cross the lines, nor even go near enough to tempt the possible fire of an enemy gun. . , ti " Straight below one as one flew over the nearer outlying trenches on our side, they were strangely distinct. • • . .
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